ZGram - 1/21/2003 "The Press and the Protests"

[irimland@zundelsite.org]

ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny

January 21, 2003

Good Morning from the Zundelsite:

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   RENSE.COM
   How The Press
   Downplayed The Protests
   Deceptions and Illusions
   By Wayne Madsen
   CounterPunch.org
   1-20-3

           A large banner hanging on the side of the East Building of the
National Gallery of Art could not have been more appropriate for the
January 18 anti-war protest on the Mall in Washington, DC. Promoting an art
display inside the museum, the banner read: "Deceptions and Illusions." It
could have easily applied to the deception foisted on the public by the
Washington Metropolitan Police Department and the corporate news media.

           The Park Police cleverly fenced off a large portion of the Mall
closest to the Washington Monument, forcing large numbers of protestors on
to Jefferson and Madison Drives. If one were to count the numbers solely on
the grassy area of the Mall it would appear that 30,000 or, as the news
media is now reporting, "tens of thousands," were present. However, if the
count were to include those forced on to the periphery of the Mall, the
number was well over 100,000.

           The police, now armed with a phalanx of surveillance cameras on
the Mall, claim the panning electronic eyes are used for crowd control.
They are correct. When crowds begin to swell in a vast area like the Mall,
the police can block streets, cordon off areas, and force people out of
camera range. This is exactly what occurred on January 18.

           The New York Times has become the chief perpetrator of low
balling anti-Bush protestor numbers. A photo caption on its web site
stated, "thousands of protestors" took part in the January 18 protest. A
similar anti-war protest held in Washington last October 26 was estimated
at between 100,000 and 200,000. It was the largest anti-war protest since
the Vietnam War, but the Times reported the number of protestors as being
in the "thousands." However, an April 15, 2002 pro-Israel rally at the US
Capitol, was reported by the Times to be 100,000. In reality, the numbers
were merely in the low thousands. The "Old Grey Lady" later admitted it had
erroneously reported the inflated number due to a "coordination" problem
with one of its desks. Five days later, a pro-Palestinian rally was held on
the White House Ellipse. Organizers claim the crowd was 100,000 but
Washington police chief Charles Ramsey put the numbers at between 35,000
and 50,000. Once again, the Times reported the numbers to be in the "tens
of thousands."

           This is not just shoddy journalism but willful disinformation
being perpetrated by corporate newspapers that want to curry favor with the
White House, Congress, and the Pentagon.

           In fact, the January 18 protest was larger than those held in
October and April last year. That would obviously put the January 18
numbers well over 100,000. But the failure to accurately report the numbers
is not entirely the fault of the news media. In the past, the media was
permitted to use their news and traffic helicopters to more accurately
gauge crowd numbers. But in the wake of September 11, the only helicopters
now permitted over Washington are those belonging to the police. They count
the numbers, divide and subtract, and then feed the phony figures to a
sycophantic media.

           The media, police, and the Bush administration want to
marginalize the protestors who came to Washington. In fact, a sign
displayed by a GOP office along the Pennsylvania Avenue parade route said
it all: "Hippies Go Home!" Even though the Republican Party is
reintroducing the terms "segregation," "cross burning," and "abortion ban"
to the American body politic, using "hippies" to describe the protestors
goes far beyond the use of an antiquated term. The GOP wants to convince
everyone that the January 18 protestors were cut from the same mold as the
anti-globalization protestors and their myriad causes. That canard was
echoed on the shameful Fox News Sunday program by Tony Snow, who labeled
the protestors "socialists." The other corporate media broadcasters
featured Bush administration senior officials pushing their war agenda.

Protest leaders and featured speakers were ignored. Joseph Goebbels could
not have asked for greater cooperation from his own media.

           When crowds of people streaming from Union Station began to swell
on to the grounds of the Capitol, the Capitol Hill police, showing their
usual harassing behavior, sent speeding police cars into the crowd. They
did not seem to care that the streets were icy. One police car began to
dangerously fishtail near a group of protestors that included young
children. Capitol Hill Police Chief Terence Gainer, whose history as
Washington, DC deputy police chief, Illinois State Police director, Chicago
cop, and Republican loyalist highlights a checkered career of police
misconduct, arrived on the scene like a Brown Shirt block commander. One
protestor was arrested for allegedly shoving a cop.

           Gainer has his own history of shoving and head clubbing. He was
rookie cop at the 1968 Democratic Convention, an event that earned the
Chicago police the moniker of "thugs" by CBS News anchorman Walter
Cronkite. In addition, a number of the forced confession cases that
influenced Illinois Governor George Ryan's decision to commute to life
imprisonment the sentences of his state's death row inmates, occurred on
Gainer's watch.

           The 1-18 protestors who came from all parts of the country
represented a cross section of America. There were church, synagogue,
mosque, and Buddhist temple groups. Grandmothers and grandfathers gathered
with their sons, daughters, and grandchildren. There were veterans of World
War II, Korea, Vietnam, and Gulf War I. College, high school, and grade
school students participated. And although the protestors were white,
African American, Hispanics, Asian American, and Arab American, the dirty
little secret that the Bush administration, the Congress, and the media
want to keep from the American people is that the vast majority of
protestors were white middle class suburbanites. And in another close
presidential election, 100,000 politically active voting Americans could
make the difference.

           But the vast numbers of protestors can have a more immediate
effect on their shameful members of Congress, who, save for Representative
John Conyers and former Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, failed to
show up at the protest in the very shadow of the Capitol dome. Even the
progressive caucus was absent. The protestors, who drove in their cars,
busses, and vans from Vermont, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut,
Georgia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia, should remember that their
members of Congress were AWOL on January 18. It is obvious that the
limousine liberals preferred sitting by their warm and cozy fireplaces as
their constituents stood and marched in 25-degree weather.

           Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist
and columnist. He wrote the introduction to Forbidden Truth.

           Madsen can be reached at: WMadsen777@aol.com

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( Source:  http://www.rense.com/general33/downplay.htm )

           http://www.counterpunch.org/madsen01182003.html

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